The Bring the heat, bring the stupid blog gave me the link to this story, comparing what troops from various countries have when they're in the field. Of course, none of them can match those wonderful US C- and K-Rations! Notice the Tabasco sauce in the Canadian pack. Check them out @ http://themetapicture.com/military-field-rations-of-the-world/
Not much experience in field rations since my ROTC days and we had them on field exercises... they were C-rations as I recall. Basically canned food. Yes we had the famous "P-38" can opener. For example one of the more popular entree's was a can of spaghetti and meatballs, which we'd heat over a field stove usually while still in the can. Not bad tasting, but very high in sodium so you'd get thirsty after eating a meal. My only other experience in the "field" was during SERE training. We were given the choice of rabbit or chicken...they were live animals in cages. We had to kill them, skin them, prepare and cook the meat. I chose rabbit, simply because I wasn't in the mood to pluck a bunch of feathers. There was also a goat, and they instructed us on the proper method to skin it and so forth. Typically my experience in the service, when deployed, (the equivalent of being in the field) revolved around these "grab n' go" meals given to aircrews, I would imagine not much has changed as these photos are circa mid-2000s. One of the DFACs, or dining facility, at Al Udeid (Qatar) air base for example, offered this as a grab n' go meal. Here is one from Guam bon appetit!
That brought back memories! When I was aircrew, we received box lunches as well, so it wasn't just an Air Force thing. The Army did it too. I think the reason is that the majority of MRE's were not allowed to be used at altitude, but I'm not sure of that.
The nickname for those were, and probably still are, "Box Nasties." Although when you consider what the combat people have to endure on the ground in terms of food, seems inappropriate to gripe too much about boxed meals. Yeah the reason, the MREs aren't given out, near as I could figure was they are difficult to open in-flight, always require utensils to eat, and can be messy, with the potential for soiling the cockpit console and electronics. There's also MRE heaters that react with water in an exothermic reaction, so maybe they don't want the potential for anything to go wrong there. That's a good question, never did get a straight answer on why not just give us MREs. Though I think it's mainly messing with the pouches in-flight and the potential for spills. The idea of these cardboard box lunches given to aircrews, goes way back...here's one from the WW2 era. Basically just candy and gum, not anything that would constitute an actual meal.
Are you kidding? Boxed nasties? You get Skittles, Snickers bars, Combos (albeit not the pizza flavored ones) potato chips, soda and cookies and it looks like a sweet roll as well. Hell of a lot better than my average lunch. In fact I find it curious they serve all those goodies because isn't the military about getting everyone into shape?
I'm not complaining, I know some of what you ground combat personnel have to endure...what with sleeping in holes in the ground. The box nasty was typically vending type snacks and a slab of some sort of processed meat and cheese sandwich that was mostly bread. Lots of carbs. This isn't what a fighter pilot would be issued, these are airlift and tanker folks..having no mustard stains on a flight suit or "bag" as they are called was considered squared away. They hired us for our ability to sit for long periods of time being bored with the occasional interruption of sheer terror.
None of them compares to good old C ration A a pack of cigarettes that you could trade For A can Of pranks and beans if you did not smoke And canned food Including a can Of pranks and beans That you could trade For two cans of Hash And a number of other goodies
3000 kilocalories, but no drinks or candies avaliable. You might as well be unlucky to get a version with canned peas or porrige.
This is actually a very interesting thread, I'm sorry that fewer have taken an interest in it. Often times the strategy, tactics and equipment are at the forefront of these discussions...but the most basic need for any soldier, sailor, Marine, airman, and coastie, is nutritional food & potable water. Rations. To quote Napoleon Bonaparte ""An army marches on its stomach." For Lil Mike, he and I were discussing flight rations earlier, and apologies to longknife for creating a sub-topic to that of the original post, field rations. Regarding the former, Mike, I found this in Change 10 of AR 30-2210. AR 30-2210: The Ration. Author, School for Bakers and Cooks (Fort Devens, Mass) 1942 Apparently this is where the "Box Nasty" got it's start.
Let me guess, no borscht or caviar? j/k What do you find in your rations? As a non military member, but having been on disaster missions, I am rather fond of some of the rations. Some of the more recent rations are a surefire favorite among kids, and let me tell you, they can get rather upset if they don't get any.
Even no pirozhki. Cruel world. Well, since they are designed to take minimum volume and have a daily energy suplies for an adult male, they mostly consist of conservated meat products (stew), buckwheat / rice / pea porridge+even more meat, canned beans, pate/chease, sort of a crackers and, I wasn't fair enough in previous post, jam or peanut butter just to make serviceman life sweater The rest is cutlery, wet wipes, a device for warming up meals and matches. Not exactly a proper meal for kids, but works just fine for adults.
The modern U.S. MRE, or "field ration", I think has 24 menus now, something like that. They are not bad, the only downside is eating out of a pouch. Many civilian agencies and groups distribute them also in emergency type situations as you allude to.
I find eating from a pouch rather practical. Trick is getting the squeeze and scoop down to a science.
MREs are very low in fiber, and high in sodium. It's meant to be a one meal a day ration. A steady diet of them would not be particularly conducive to feeling 100%, if you know what I mean. Rations have come a long way since the early days of hardtack bread,stale biscuits and salt pork; however it's still the sort of food that sustains a person wth caloric intake but doesn't really promote nutritional eating. Here's an article with rations from other countries, similar to what the OP posted. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/04/weekinreview/20100905_gilbertson.html?_r=0
I still have two boxes of MRE's in the pantry. I figured I would save them for either the Zombie Apocalypse or unemployment, but taste wise most of the menus are pretty good if heated. The problem comes with eating them for a couple of weeks at a time. After that, you can't stand to smell them.
I retired before MREs were developed. I was, however, aware of their development as, during my assignment to the US Army Medical Research and Development Command, one of our labs worked with the Material Command to determine what they should include. Occasionally, the local commissary at Nellis AFB will stock some shelves with MREs. Amazing how quickly they get bought up. Tried a couple of different ones and they were actually quite good.
There are two types of field rations for infantry. MREs or whatever you can buy, cook or steal from the local population.
